


a galaxy in your hands

by Potoo



Series: burn the world [2]
Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Cousin Incest, Loyalty, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Rough Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 13:59:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potoo/pseuds/Potoo
Summary: galaxy(pluralgalaxies), noun. :1.(astronomy)a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter, of which there are billions in the known universe2.(geography)the appearance of a city counting two million inhabitants, by night3.(you and him)starlight in his eyes, dark matter in his heart, dust in his lungs, and maybe there are billions like him in the known universe, but only one is truly yours





	a galaxy in your hands

**Author's Note:**

> TW: There is one minor mention of pedophilia and rape (concerning unnamed characters), as well as the mention of violent repercussions. Please do not read if this is dangerous to your mental health. <3 
> 
> CW: mentions of canon-typical homophobic language, mentions of canon-typical violence
> 
> \---
> 
> Set somewhere before Manuela's birth.

There were no stars. And that wasn't because it was cloudy tonight; there were never stars over Medellín. If you stood in one of the winding streets and looked up at any time after sunset, you would see only darkness above. Maybe that was why the city itself was always so bright. It tried to shine where there was no light. Show people the way when they couldn't see on their own. And in that way, the city had made its own stars, an entire milky way of light-bulbs inside old houses, bright fluorescent tubes outside of restaurants, and a million flashes every second, every blinking machine adding another star to the galaxy.

They were on a hill just outside of the city, looking down at Medellín's artificial milky way. The weather was fair, as it always was this time of the year. Pablo sat on top of the hood of one of his cars, balancing the very last rest of a joint between the fingers of his left hand. He didn't need stars as long as the city glittered like that for him. And it did; that was, it glittered _for him_. It was his city, and therefore its light was his too. He paid for half of the electricity lines running through the city like veins, so the light was his, and the city was his. Medellín was his very own galaxy. Which other man could say that of himself - that he owned an entire galaxy? That he made the universe shine? That was what God did, wasn't it?

He took the last drag of his joint and threw it away carelessly. Its light flickered one last time before it went out amid hardy little weeds breaking through dry earth. Gustavo looked up at him. His cousin was sitting on the ground, his back leaning against the car, right shoulder an inch from Pablo's legs dangling over the end of the hood.

“You're thinking, brother,” Gustavo said, his voice smooth as silk, the hint of a slur whispering of the bottles they'd emptied together earlier that evening. Pablo looked down at Gustavo, his expression betraying nothing, and he waited for Gustavo to follow up on that statement. _What's up_ , maybe, or _What are you thinking about_. But nothing came. Pablo waited, one second, two seconds, five seconds, while they looked at each other; finally, Gustavo looked away, back to the city lights far beneath them.

Pablo remembered that Gustavo always knew what he was thinking, and that was why he didn't need to ask about it. That made him feel like smiling; he didn't, though.

“I am,” he replied, calmly, almost serenely, and he followed Gustavo's gaze back to Medellín. It was beautiful like that, his city. He rarely loved it as much as he did when it was like this, a beacon of lights in a desert of darkness. The two of them were silent after that short exchange, watching the city lights, tiny cars driving in the distance, until Pablo looked up to the sky. One small light appeared in the sky, blinking, vanishing from time to time and reappearing in another place. A plane was flying overhead. This time, it was Gustavo who followed his gaze as he, too, turned his head to look up at the sky. They let the plane pass over them in silence. Silence between them was never uncomfortable, and it was only the two of them up here. Tata was pregnant and spent most of her time in bed these days. Pablo had driven up here himself, with only Gustavo in the car with him. Poison had wanted to come with them, but he'd ordered him and the other hitmen to stay in the city. It wasn't as if he was in danger here. This was his city, and it would never betray him.

“I think I can see dad's old house from up here,” Gustavo said, pointing vaguely at the Eastern part of the city. Pablo scoffed. That was bullshit. You couldn't make out a specific house from this distance. “No, really. Look. Right next to the church my mom took me to.” Gustavo pointed more insistently, and Pablo squinted his eyes. He remembered the church from the times he and his siblings had visited his uncle and aunt; a brick building with a tall belfry but not much else. He couldn't see a belfry there, though. Pablo shook his head. Gustavo sighed. “Damn, those sermons were a bore. D'you know that the priest was called Gustavo? Father Gustavo. He was a piece of shit. Fucked one of the neighborhood boys. Choir boy. What was his name? I forgot. And of course no-one called the cops.”

“Why should they,” Pablo said flatly. The police around here was useless. Wasted their time with people like him, a simple taxi driver with a lucrative side job, while turning a blind eye to the true criminals. People without honor. People who just added to the suffering of those who were already suffering enough. Pablo knew people like that well. Small-minded people who never looked at the world as a whole and remained caged in what they believed was the universe, but what was actually nothing more than a pitiful puddle. And why would the police hunt small-minded bastards? They were made of the same material, after all. All a cop cared about was the money in his hand. Pablo paid them, but that didn't mean he respected them.

Gustavo made a noise deep in his throat that meant he agreed. “Exactly. So that kid's dad took matters into his own hands. One morning, a nun found Father Gustavo in his home. His balls were cut off and stuffed into his mouth. Probably choked on them. And his throat was cut. Probably to make sure the job was finished. That's when the cops came, of course. Fuck a child? That's fine with these faggots. But kill a priest? That won't do. Arrested the kid's father. I believe he died after a year in prison.”

“Hm. And the boy?” Pablo asked. He'd never heard that story before; neither from Gustavo nor from his uncle.

“Dunno. I was eight or so when all of that happened. I didn't even understand it until a few years later. I think I just remember it 'cause that son-of-a-bitch's name was Gustavo.”

Pablo hummed, low in his throat. That explained why he hadn't heard of it until now. If Gustavo'd been eight, then Pablo had been five. Not really a bedtime story you'd tell your five-year-old child. Gustavo sighed deeply and stood up, dusting off earth from his jeans. He was taller than Pablo like that, standing in front of him. Tall and slim, but with broad shoulders. The city lights made him seem darker than he really was, shadows hugging his form from behind, his skin paler and his hair blacker than they usually looked. He blocked out the city lights, blocked out Pablo's view of his world, but Pablo didn't mind. Gustavo was as much a galaxy as Medellín was, although, perhaps, in a very different way. When Pablo did something great and Gustavo looked at him with nothing but adoration in his eyes, shining as bright as any star – or when Gustavo held a gun barrel against a bastard's head and Pablo got a hint of the black hole inside of him, waiting to devour the world – or when he breathed in cigarette smoke Gustavo had just exhaled... then he seemed very much like a galaxy to Pablo.

They shared another thing, his city and his cousin; they were both _his_ , and only his. Tata would die for Pablo, but she'd also die for their son and their unborn child. That was a good quality for a wife, no doubt, but it meant she wasn't entirely _his_ ; not exclusively. His hitmen would kill for Pablo, but they wouldn't die for him if they could avoid it. But Gustavo - - Gustavo would kill for Pablo, and he would die for him, happily, no questions asked, but _only_ for Pablo. The thought made him a bit light-headed every time he thought it, and tonight was no different. He looked into Gustavo's eyes. They seemed very dark.

“Is that your excuse?” Pablo asked, his tone serious but soft. “Why you left your cozy home and started stealing cars with your good-for-nothing scumbag of a cousin? That knowing about Father Gustavo fucked you up in the head?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Gustavo's mouth. He took a step towards Pablo until all Pablo could see anymore was the dark figure in front of him, a sliver of light where Gustavo ended and the city began. “You think I can tell that to the judge? _It's not my fault, none of it is my fault, I just had a horrible childhood, and then Pablo made me do all these despicable things, please spare me..._ ” By the time he finished his little plea, Gustavo was openly smirking and Pablo was huffing out a laugh. “Fuck that, brother. You know there's only one reason I started doing all of these things, and it's not fucking Father Gustavo.”

Pablo smiled. He knew that. And he knew what that one reason was, too. He raised a hand and grabbed Gustavo's upper arm, right beneath where the short sleeve of his shirt ended, and his fingers were digging into the bare skin there. “I know. You're a bandit. It's in your blood.” Gustavo started smiling when Pablo said that, showing his teeth, a fleck of white in the darkness. And it was true. Gustavo was a bandit. Pablo was not; not the way his cousin was, not through and through. Pablo kept reaching for the stars. He knew he was destined for greatness, for something else, something much greater than anyone before them.

“Pablo, it's rare that you're wrong.” Gustavo placed a hand on the hood of the car, right next to where Pablo sat, and closed the last remaining distance between them until their noses were touching. Pablo stared at him. After a few seconds, Gustavo was the one who blinked first, but he still wore that white smile. “And I know you hate it when you're wrong. But you are. I'm a bandit, that's correct, and it's in my blood. I would've landed this side of the law no matter what.”

“Hm. But?” Pablo prompted. His voice was raspy and quiet, only loud enough to be heard like this, so close their breath mingled.

“ _But_.” While Gustavo talked, Pablo licked his lips, and he watched Gustavo's gaze flicker to the motion hungrily. “But. That's not what made me pack my bags and leave my parents' house all these years ago. Maybe Father Gustavo fucked up my head and maybe I'm a born criminal, but that's not why I left them back then. That's not it at all. That's both just so - so --” Gustavo's smile had disappeared, and it seemed that he was concentrating now, as if he had to think hard about his next words. Gustavo had never found words easy; at least not the way they came to Pablo effortlessly, as easy and natural as breathing. “Unimportant. That's what it is.”

Pablo's fingers were digging deeper into the warm skin beneath them. He raised his head a fraction and caught Gustavo's lower lip with his teeth. Gustavo shuddered, and Pablo claimed his mouth in a kiss. He watched Gustavo intently, eyes sliding shut, moaning quietly into the kiss. Pablo's fingers would be leaving marks. Saliva and blood glistened on Gustavo's lips after Pablo was finished with the kiss. “What's the reason, then?” Pablo asked, his voice nothing more than a huff of air.

“Huh?” Gustavo asked, blinking. He had lost the thread of the conversation, apparently. It had always been so easy to steal all of Gustavo's thoughts away with one brush of Pablo's lips against his, and tonight was no different.

“What made you leave your parents?”

“Oh,” Gustavo said. He swallowed. Pablo watched his Adam's apple bounce. ”Right. You, of course.”

“Hmm,” Pablo hummed, and there was that wave of warm contentment again. Gustavo was his, and would always be, in every possible way. He decided to reward Gustavo for that peculiar light-headedness throbbing through Pablo's veins, closed his eyes, and pulled him in for another kiss. The summer air was warm around them, but not as warm as Gustavo made him feel in moments like this. Warm on the outside, because Gustavo's body was pressed against his, a line of heat, their heartbeats right next to each other; but even warmer on the inside, where a wildfire burnt through Pablo's blood, leaving his bones charred to coal and his heart sated for weeks.

Gustavo had said that Pablo was wrong, but Pablo wasn't wrong. Pablo was never wrong, not if his critics cared to look at the world as they were supposed to, as a whole. Gustavo thought he had started this life because of Pablo, not because he was fucked up and not because he was born to be a bandit. But what was the difference between those three? Gustavo was a bit fucked up, Gustavo was a bandit, and Gustavo was Pablo's. Those went together, bound up with each other so intricately that they could not be unbound, and if you tried, you couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. If they were separated, they would perish.

Pablo opened his eyes and looked up at the sky while Gustavo pressed his lips to Pablo's mouth, his chin, his neck. The sky above him was still pitch black. This black was to darkness as a vacuum was to silence; the same thing, in principle, but so much more stifling, crushing you beneath its endless expanse. Pablo breathed in. He didn't need stars above. He had fought and clawed his way up out of the gutter until he possessed his own galaxy, right here in front of him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this! :} For me, Pablo and Gustavo were one of the emotional hearts of the show, and I wanted to put that into words somehow. Also, writing from Pablo's POV is... really fun. I care a lot about characterization, so please let me know if you have any ideas how I can hit the character tones better! 
> 
> Son-of-a-bitch is, of course, an incomplete translation of hijo de puta; faggot is maricón; and hitmen are sicarios.
> 
> And yeah, that plane flying overhead? Centra Spike, probably. But who knows...


End file.
